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All About Yves
| }} /Credits|Credits}} /Gallery|Gallery}} /Transcript|Transcript}} }} "All About Yves" is the thirteenth episode of the first season of The Lone Gunmen. Synopsis The Gunmen team up with "Man in Black" Morris Fletcher to search for Yves, in the possibility that she is a member of a secret government organization responsible for decades of major terrorist acts and other historical, fatal incidents. Summary Teaser GEORGETOWN PLAZA HOTEL WASHINGTON, D.C. While chatting a woman up in an upscale hotel bar in Washington, D.C., a man takes off his wedding ring, behind his back. The man is none other than Morris Fletcher, who impresses the woman with talk of his secretive activities as a Man in Black. Planning to pay and take the girl to his room at the Georgetown Plaza Hotel, Morris takes out his wallet. His ring falls on the counter, however, and the woman consequently excuses herself, scowling. Grey stands over Morris Fletcher with an odd, shiny wand.]] Morris is later heading away when a bright light in the sky - apparently, a UFO - suddenly shines directly down on him. He finds himself nakedly hooked up to a torture chair that is seemingly aboard the craft. A Grey Alien approaches him with a wand and threatens to use it in his nose unless he reveals what the Mihirron Project is. Frightened, Fletcher claims that the project relates to the government's use of alien weapons technology. The Alien nevertheless inserts the wand inside his nose, causing him to howl in pain. Shortly after, The Lone Gunmen's VW bus speeds along a quiet highway. Inside, Frohike removes a Halloween mask from a costume that Fletcher mistakenly thought was the alien, while all three Gunmen and Jimmy Bond are ecstatic that they have managed to fool Fletcher into revealing so much information. The group are stopped and surrounded by soldiers who aim guns at them, however. Act One The Gunmen and Jimmy are forced to their knees by the soldiers, and Fletcher arrives in his car. He is about to have the Gunmen and Jimmy shot in the head, until Frohike reluctantly admits that they were led to him by an email from the domain name "Romeo 61", which evokes a troubled expression from Fletcher. The Gunmen and Jimmy are left lying on the road, surprised when they are not shot. They are later in their offices with their hacking associate, Kimmy. Searching for information about Romeo 61, the group eventually manages to access a list of dates and locations that seem to suggest that many historical tragedies were actually government-sanctioned terrorist acts. Kimmy starts to panic about his involvement and hurries away. Although the significance of the list grows even more when the Gunmen find that it dates back to the assassination of JFK, Jimmy considers that Kimmy may be right not to dig any deeper. Ignoring Jimmy's advice, the Gunmen consider how best to proceed and Byers indirectly suggests that they do so with Fletcher. Meanwhile, Morris successfully chats up a doltish woman at the upscale hotel bar and gets out his wallet, the couple agreeing to head somewhere quieter. The pair arrive at Fletcher's room but the appearance of Frohike, dressed in a bathrobe and acting like a sexual deviant, scares the woman into leaving. Byers and Langly also enter, much to Fletcher's frustration. The Gunmen suspect that he needs them due to his fear of Romeo 61. Byers therefore offers their services as journalists but Fletcher merely insults the group's publication, "The Lone Gunman", and alleges that their status as lowly journalists was the reason he let them live. His visitors are about to go when Fletcher reluctantly accepts their help. On a city street at night, Jimmy meets up with Yves Adele Harlow but she is in a rush and stays in her car. Jimmy tells her of his worries that the Gunmen may be in over their heads, clarifying that - in his usage of the terms "JFK" and "Men in Black" - he means the actual people and not the movies. She advises him not to let the Gunmen go through with the story but says that she cannot personally help and hurriedly drives away. Fletcher tells the Gunmen that Romeo 61 is essentially motivated to cause destructive havoc. He also says that he has a big meeting on Friday, at which he is supposed to present information that Frohike correctly guesses concerns the Mihirron Project. According to Fletcher, however, the information has been stolen and, if he attends the meeting without it, he will most certainly be killed. Morris begins to detail the robber and the Gunmen attentively sit up when he describes Yves, who he knows by the anagrammatic alias Darva Loye Welshe. While he tells the Gunmen about his encounter with her, he sits alone in the upscale bar and watches Yves enter. According to his description, she immediately sat down next to him. However, in the past, she sits down at the counter and he approaches her. Yves uncomfortably tolerates his attempts to seduce her but, in his hotel room, she drugs him by allowing Fletcher to nuzzle her neck where a thin membrane-like patch is hidden, and he falls to the floor. She then steals a zip disc from a safe in the room. The Gunmen admit to Fletcher that they have had dealings with Yves. Fletcher implicates her as the sender of the Romeo 61 email and a member of that organization. Act Two In their own offices, both Byers and Langly tell Fletcher about their unsuccessful efforts to track down the enigmatic Yves, Langly mentioning that Yves managed to change her billing address to Martha Stewart Living. Jimmy enters but is surprised to see Fletcher present and urges the Gunmen to abandon the story they are pursuing, mentioning that Yves gave the same advice. Langly is irritated that Jimmy told Yves about the story. The Gunmen are, by now, convinced that Yves is part of Romeo 61 but Jimmy doubts this and defends her, despite Langly citing Yves' mysteriousness. In a dark hotel room, Yves technologically leaves a message on Fox Mulder's answering machine, making it seem as if Frohike is calling with news of a significant discovery that he wants to discuss in person. Frohike's voice leaves a contact number so that they can arrange to meet. The Gunmen, Morris and Jimmy meanwhile conduct a four-hour search for Yves, first returning to the same hotel where Fletcher encountered her, before the team hacks into several surveillance cameras. They ultimately track her to a room in the Bishop Place Hotel. Wary of traps, Langly carefully cuts a trip line on the other side of the room's door. Opening the door nevertheless triggers another trap; Langly is instantly splatted with blue paint, much to his irritation but to Fletcher's amusement. The group later thoroughly searches the room, even examining underwear therein, while Jimmy criticizes the search. An angered Langly eventually shouts at Jimmy to just leave and, despite Byers and Frohike both urging Langly to calm down, Jimmy exits. Moments later, Langly comes across an opening receipt for a Swiss bank account that was opened on the previous day, with a vast sum of money from the Fenix Atlantic Corporation. Langly guesses that Fenix Atlantic is another name for Romeo 61 and Byers implies his conclusion that Yves sold Fletcher's disc to them. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ANCIENT ARTIFACTS DEPARTMENT Yves walks through a library-like department of the Smithsonian Institution and up to a Clerk's desk. She uses a cover story on the Clerk and he - familiar with Yves - plays along with the story, allowing her into a back room. The Clerk is under the impression that she has come to sell him something, voicing disappointment at having been excluded from several opportunities that surprisingly never made it to market - such as the Octium IV chip and the water-powered car. Yves quietly demands to know who the Clerk has told about her and whether a certain unnamed group knows of her whereabouts. Moments later, she walks back out of the department, being spied upon by a Sharply Dressed Man. Act Three While preparing to leave the Gunmen's offices for good, Jimmy notices an incoming email; it is Mulder's reply to the Gunmen, having been unable to contact the number left by Yves. Mulder's email arranges to meet the Gunmen at 14th & K Streets but at ten o'clock instead of nine. Jimmy mistakenly assumes the email was sent by Yves. FENIX ATLANTIC CORPORATION WASHINGTON, D.C. 8:27 P.M. The Gunmen study the highly secured headquarters of Fenix Atlantic and Fletcher teases the blue-faced Langly. The Gunmen discover, in the building's plans, a massive vault on the sixteenth floor and Byers starts to formulate a plan, inspired by the blue paint on Langly's face. 14TH & K STREETS 9:16 P.M. In a parking lot, Yves catches sight of the Sharply Dressed Man and flees. As the man speeds after her, he passes Jimmy, who is aggravated by the man's speed as he himself arrives. The man pursues Yves along a street and into an alley, where he finds her car abandoned. Yves appears at his window with a silenced pistol. She listens as the man, at gunpoint, delivers a message that the Gunmen will die unless she comes with him but, rather than accompanying him, she shoots out both his tires and departs the area. Elsewhere, Byers explains to Fletcher that, by covering Langly's face in blue paint and pink dots, they can fool the facial recognition scanner into reading his face as identical to one in its database. Fletcher declines an offer to accompany them and Frohike starts to paint Byers' face blue. 10:06 A.M. Mulder.]] In the parking lot, Jimmy goes in search of Yves but comes face-to-face with Mulder. As they are unfamiliar with one another, Jimmy and Mulder step past each other, both waiting for someone else. They each eventually figure out who the other is and why they are there. Jimmy recognizes Mulder as a guy for whom the Gunmen are always solving crimes and asks about Mulder's abduction, but Mulder is more intent on resolving the misunderstandings of the meeting arrangement. Talking on a phone to the Sharply Dressed Man, Fletcher watches the Gunmen start to make their way into the headquarters of Fenix Atlantic. He shouts informal encouragement to them but secretly likens the trio, to the Sharply Dressed Man, as "three blue mice, headed for the cheese." Act Four Having kidnapped Kimmy, Jimmy forces him into the Gunmen's offices, recounts his own encounter with Mulder and instructs Kimmy to trace a contact number that Mulder gave him - the same number that Yves left on Mulder's answering machine. When Kimmy traces it to Martha Stewart Living, Jimmy realizes that Yves was going to meet with Mulder and give him Fletcher's zip disc. Yves herself arrives and hands the disc to Jimmy, charging him with its delivery to Agent Mulder. She takes the computer over from Kimmy and explains to a curious Jimmy that the disc contains nothing as exotic as the Mihirron Project but is actually a detailed file of innocent people who have been brainwashed, by the likes of Fletcher, into believing that they themselves are alien abductees. Yves also explains that Romeo 61 is disinformation created to bait the Lone Gunmen. The Gunmen meanwhile continue to sneak into the headquarters of Fenix Atlantic, Byers successfully passing through the facial recognition system. Still using the computer in the journalists' offices, Yves becomes frustrated at being unable to determine the name of the Sharply Dressed Man, so Kimmy voluntarily continues the search. Yves tells Jimmy that - although Fletcher is using the Gunmen as bait to get to her - he simply wants his disc back and is working for another man who has spent a long time looking for Yves but who she will not name to Jimmy. They worry that her refusal to turn herself over to him may result in the deaths of the Gunmen. Langly passes through the facial recognition system, the last of the Gunmen to do so. The trio approach a metallic door of an elevator that they call for. Searching for the Gunmen, Jimmy recalls that he last saw the trio in Yves' hotel room, but she reveals that she doesn't have a room there. Jimmy and Yves watch as Kimmy, momentarily distracted by Yves' intimate closeness, works the computer to determine that the room was rented by Fenix Atlantic. In the organization's headquarters, the Gunmen take the elevator to the sixteenth floor, where they find a massive vault door. Byers suspects that, behind the door, lies every answer to every question they have ever asked. Jimmy, Kimmy and Yves arrive outside the building to find the VW bus, abandoned. After Yves concludes that the Gunmen are likely inside, Jimmy concocts a foolhardy plan but Yves injects him, knocking him out cold. She leaves Kimmy to take Jimmy home and begins to head inside the building. On the sixteenth floor, the Gunmen are struggling to open the vault door when they realize their schematics of the building are fake. They watch as the elevator descends to their level and opens to reveal Fletcher, the Sharply Dressed Man and a detachment of troops who not only surround the Gunmen but also hold Yves in custody. TO BE CONTINUED Memorable Quotes *"We tell the stories other refuse to tell!" *"Yeah. That's one way to put it." - Richard Langly and Morris Fletcher *''We're looking for the truth, and we're doing it with a man who lies for a living!'' - Jimmy Bond *"I'm not armed." *"You should be." - the Sharply Dressed Man and Yves Adele Harlow References Fënix Atlantic Background Information Introductory Details *Despite the announcement "to be continued" appearing at the end of this episode, the episode was never continued nor concluded in The Lone Gunmen series, as the series was subsequently canceled. The writers felt that they had let down the fans of the series by ending this episode with those three words, so they later wrote The X-Files episode "Jump the Shark" - which concludes much of this episode's storyline. Writer Frank Spotnitz has suggested that, if the series had continued, the plot of the concluding episode would have featured Jimmy and Kimmy having to save the rest of the guys. *The title sequence for this episode does not feature the beginnings of the US national anthem. *In The Lone Gunmen series, this episode is the last of six whose titles include the name of an individual main character from the series. The others are "Bond, Jimmy Bond", "Eine Kleine Frohike", "Planet of the Frohikes", "Maximum Byers" and "Diagnosis: Jimmy". Story & Script *This episode was written at a time when the fate of the series was still unknown, so the writers were determined to add essentially every trick they had into the episode. *One of the aspects that made this a "big episode", in the opinion of Frank Spotnitz, was that it promised to finally say who Yves Adele Harlow was, a matter that the writers had not been definitive about, beforehand. Similarly, Spotnitz thought that Yves' refusal to go with the Sharply Dressed Man, despite his precautioning that doing so would save the lives of the Lone Gunmen, was nice as the scene played on whether Yves cared for the Gunmen or not and the writers had never really established, hitherto, that she did. *The episode's conceptualization started with the idea of bringing Morris Fletcher - a recurring character from The X-Files - into The Lone Gunmen spin-off series. The writers of this episode imagined that the viewers of The X-Files would enjoy watching Fletcher in this episode. *The writers were also determined to include Kimmy in this episode. *The name "Meherrin" (as in the Meherrin Project) was actually the name of a small town about ten miles away from Farmville, Virginia, where writer Vince Gilligan had grown up. *The name "Fenix Atlantic" came about when the writers - as was so often the case when coming up with a story - were sitting in a room together, one of them came up with a temporary name - just to have something to put on the story cards (which they used to develop the plot) - and the name subsequently stuck for reasons unknown to them. *There was a small censorship issue about showing, on-screen, a rectal probe that Jimmy pulls out and comments on by saying that the Gunmen didn't even need to use it to fool Fletcher, immediately before the Gunmen's VW bus is stopped by the detachment of armed soldiers. The script describes this prop as "some big and shiny, quasi-dildo looking thing." *The color of blue that sprays Langly is specified in the episode's script as being robin's egg blue. However, the shade of blueness was later changed, by the time of the episode's completion, to a very bright blue. *According to writer John Shiban, the scene in which the Gunmen rake through underwear drawers at the Bishop Place Hotel was "a way for us to live out all of our own geeky, adolescent fantasies." *Although the writers found the car chase at night to be fun and easy to write, the complexities of putting the scene into practice perplexed director Bryan Spicer when he first read the script. *An exchange of dialogue between the Sharply Dressed Man and Yves, when the man tells Yves that he is not armed and she replies that he should be, was taken from a scene in the film The Outlaw Josey Wales. In the scene, Josey Wales - a character played by Clint Eastwood - shoots an unarmed man, someone says to Wales that his victim wasn't armed and Wales replies that the unarmed man should have armed himself. *As the writers were breaking the story, they were considering what method the Gunmen would use to sneak inside the headquarters of Fenix Atlantic. The writers had already come up with the blue gag and suddenly realized that they could possibly use it in the story, so they did. Cast & Established Characters *In this episode, Michael McKean returned as Morris Fletcher. McKean had previously worked with Bryan Spicer, as he had also directed The X-Files episode "Three of a Kind" - an episode that had, coincidentally, led inadvertently to the creation of The Lone Gunmen spin-off series. *David Duchovny's cameo as Mulder was not advertised prior to the episode's original airing. Locations *Interiors of both the Georgetown Plaza Hotel and the Bishop Place Hotel were actually all filmed in Vancouver's Sutton Place Hotel, including its Gerard Lounge (where the upscale bar of the Georgetown Plaza Hotel was filmed). The Sutton Place Hotel was a gathering spot for famous television and movie personalities; cast and crew members from The X-Files, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen frequently socialized there. *The exterior of the Georgetown Plaza Hotel, as is shown in the episode's second scene, was actually the studio lot parking lot. *The first scene in which the Gunmen are surrounded by soldiers was filmed in the outdoors of Vancouver, in very cold weather. *In the montage wherein the Gunmen hack into the surveillance cameras, they see black-and-white footage supposedly captured by each camera. All of this footage was actually filmed in a corner of Gastown, a downtown neighborhood in Vancouver. Bryan Spicer and members of the crew simply went from one corner to the next, trying to make each bit look a little different. *The parking lot at 14th & K Streets was filmed partly in Vancouver and partly at the Fox lot in Los Angeles, in an employee parking lot under a skyscraper building that had featured in the film Die Hard. *The car chase involving Yves and the Sharply Dressed Man was actually filmed in Vancouver. *The scenes that are set inside the headquarters of Fenix Atlantic were filmed on stages, where Mark Freeborn's production design team built - on a typically low budget - the facial recognition system as well as the stainless steel areas of the base, including the elevator, the vault door and the room surrounding it. Despite the simplicity of its appearance, the inside of the elevator was a deceptively complicated set and was built on a turntable so that the Gunmen actors simply entered it from one set and exited onto another set, all in one cut. Production *When filming the alien abduction scene, Frohike actor Tom Braidwood wanted to make sure the viewer got a sense that Frohike was under the alien costume, so he purposefully incorporated some motions typical of Frohike into the performance. *McKean ad-libbed all of Fletcher's dialogue in this episode's flashback scene, including Fletcher insulting a woman in the hotel bar by saying, "So I said 'Lesbian? I thought you said Lebanese,'" and telling Yves, "And by this time, it had swollen to the size of a Texas grapefruit." *The shot of Langly being sprayed blue was filmed in only one take. *One of the shots set in the Bishop Hotel features Byers talking just before a black item of clothing lands on him, as Langly is systematically searching through a chest of drawers in the room by tossing clothing from it over his own shoulders. Such a seemingly "happy accident" originally occurred during rehearsal but took numerous tries before it happened again. *The director's cut of this episode overran (as was typical of episodes in The Lone Gunmen series), so the scene in which Yves visits the Smithsonian Institution was cut from the aired version. *The reason that the parking lot at 14th & K Streets was filmed piecemeal in both Vancouver and Los Angeles was because Bryan Spicer couldn't film all the required footage in Los Angeles on schedule and David Duchovny was too busy performing in The X-Files to come to Vancouver. Consequently, shots of Yves in the parking lot were filmed in Vancouver, whereas shots in which Jimmy Bond appears, including the scene wherein he meets Mulder, were filmed in Los Angeles. The scene featuring Mulder was the one and only scene of The Lone Gunmen series that was filmed with the Los Angeles crew of The X-Files, rather than the Vancouver crew of the spin-off series. Bryan Spicer still directed the scene, although he was only allotted an hour or two in which to film the scene, as David Duchovny was so busy with The X-Files. Hence, the crew ran Duchovny out to the location, put him in a different outfit and quickly filmed the scene. *Shots of the Sharply Dressed Man's tires being popped by a gun-wielding Yves were each fortunately filmed in one take. *The last scene filmed for this episode was also the last one of the story. Cultural References *In this episode's first scene, Fletcher boasts that he was the inspiration for Tommy Lee Jones' character in Men in Black. Jimmy references the same film during his roadside discussion with Yves. *In the first scene of the episode's second act, Langly is wearing a T-shirt of the band Korn. *"Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim can be heard on two separate occasions. *Fletcher calls Langly "Braveheart", when his face is covered in blue dye. *Yves' phone bill is credited to Martha Stuart Living. *Frank Spotnitz once described the teaser of this episode as "very much a Mission: Impossible-type caper which ... goes terribly wrong." This harkens back to the writers originally conceiving The Lone Gunmen series as essentially "Mission: Impossible with geeks." *Numerous references are made to JFK and his assassination, including one reference - made by Jimmy during his roadside conversation with Yves - to the film entitled JFK. *Fletcher's unwitting seduction of Yves and his fall to the floor (in which he clutches his mouth) - due to essentially having become too close to her - was intended by the writers to be in reference to the penultimate scene of "Kiss of Death", an episode of the late-sixties spy-spoof television series Get Smart. In the scene, spy Maxwell Smart kisses femme fatale Tracey Dunhill but she is wearing poisonous lipstick and, clutching his mouth, he falls to the floor. He nevertheless survives, however, and reveals that he was wearing plastic lips at the time of the otherwise deadly kiss. Nitpicks *When entering the Fenix Atlantic building, the Gunmen take every precaution against getting through the electronic security, but take none whatsoever with regards to encountering any workers. Their blue face paint would likely make them highly suspicious to any security guards. Other Episode Notes *When the Lone Gunmen hack the biometric face readers allowing them access to Romeo 61's base, the hacked IDs that show up have the same names as the episode's writers. *Vince Gilligan went through much rigmarole to ensure the inclusion of a T-shirt that Kimmy is wearing in his first scene of this episode. *Moments after Mulder comes face-to-face with Jimmy but just before they start talking to each other, the background music includes an imitation of The X-Files theme that composer Mark Snow couldn't resist adding. *The alien torture chair was borrowed from The X-Files. Since The Lone Gunmen was being filmed in Vancouver and The X-Files was filming in Los Angeles at this point, the torture chair got stuck in customs for a while, given its appearance. (audio commentary from "All About Yves", The Lone Gunmen (season 1) DVD) Effects *In the alien abduction scene, McKean wore small appliances that were basically thin rubber on the sides of his face, with little nodes to attach metallic hooks. Continuity *Despite both Agent Mulder and Jimmy Bond being close associates of the Lone Gunmen, the Gunmen appear to have never told Mulder about Jimmy. *Although Morris Fletcher previously appeared numerous times in The X-Files, this episode marks the first meeting between Fletcher and the Lone Gunmen of which they are conscious. Fletcher previously met the Gunmen, but their memories of that meeting were subsequently erased (TXF: "Dreamland II"). *The Clerk's references to the Octium IV chip and the water-powered car are indirect references to both the "Pilot" and "Like Water for Octane" respectively. *Following this episode, the Gunmen themselves not only returned in "Jump the Shark" (which also features return appearances by Jimmy, Kimmy, Yves and Fletcher) but first continued to make small appearances in Season 9 episodes of The X-Files, as the Gunmen had done since their introduction in the episode "E.B.E.". This range of episodes started with "Nothing Important Happened Today", in which Langly still bears blue paint on his face, due to the events of this episode. *Several shots from this episode were later reused in a montage in the teaser of "Jump the Shark". These include Morris Fletcher grinning while on the metallic sixteenth floor of Fenix Atlantic's headquarters; Langly defending the exploits of himself and his group by telling Fletcher that they "tell the stories others refuse to tell" and Fletcher mockingly saying that the reality of the situation could be phrased that way; first Byers and then Langly inside the facial recognition system; Langly being sprayed by blue paint and Fletcher consequently bursting into laughter; and, finally, the blue-faced Gunmen being surrounded by troops. *The alien abduction teaser scene in this episode was, according to writer Frank Spotnitz, "very consciously, a parody of The X-Files." The scripted version of this scene describes the alien as "an Alien Gray, as seen on The X-Files," and details the chair that Fletcher is bound to by saying it "looks a heck of a lot like the alien torture chair Mulder occupied earlier this season", referring to a chair featured in scenes of Mulder's abduction in Season 8 of The X-Files. **The exact same chair was used in this episode, after it became temporarily stuck in customs, while being transported between the US and Vancouver, as the customs officials were unsure what it was. The chair was thereafter slightly modified from its appearances on The X-Files; this episode's script details these changes by stating, "There is no blood, and no rods through his wrists or ankles." Spotnitz later jokingly commented on the rarity of doing something straight on one show and, later in the same year, making it look as ridiculous as possible. *Jimmy Bond verbally refers to Mulder's abduction (TXF: "Requiem"), asking Mulder whether his alien abductors probed him or used either of the two probes that the Gunmen equipped themselves with for fooling Fletcher into believing he was being abducted (TXF: "Within", "Without"). *Frank Spotnitz thought the stainless steel room containing the vault door felt like it was in the same universe as The X-Files, seeing a comparison between it and a stainless steel set in "Memento Mori" that was built by Graeme Murray, The X-Files original production designer. Cast Starring *Bruce Harwood as John Fitzgerald Byers *Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike *Dean Haglund as Richard Langly *Stephen Snedden as Jimmy Bond *Zuleikha Robinson as Yves Adele Harlow Guest Starring *Michael McKean as Morris Fletcher *Jim Fyfe as Kimmy Co-Starring *Peter Hall as Sharply Dressed Man Featuring *Kendall Cross as Woman *Tanya Reid as 2nd Woman *Sylvesta Stuart as Lead Soldier *Max Wyman as Clerk Uncredited *David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder External links Category:Lone Gunmen episodes